Developer breaks ground on $143M project in Las Vegas’ Chinatown

Developer Jonathan Fore is pushing ahead with plans for another apartment complex in Las Vegas’ Chinatown area, as he transforms a once-blighted site along the popular corridor.

Fore, a managing partner with Fore Property Co., held a ceremonial groundbreaking Tuesday for Jewel, an upscale project just south of Spring Mountain Road along both Valley View Boulevard and Procyon Street.

The $143 million mixed-use development, about a mile west of the Las Vegas Strip, is slated to feature 380 apartments and 26,000 square feet of retail space.

Las Vegas’ restaurant-packed Chinatown commercial district along Spring Mountain draws locals and tourists alike. The retail centers are packed with eateries and other tenants, and Fore has wagered that more people also want to live in upscale apartment buildings in the area.

He said that the average rental rate at his newest project is $2,250 per month and that the apartments will span an average of 815 square feet.

The first units are expected to be available in summer 2028.

12-foot drop

In an interview Tuesday, Fore noted that he has been developing projects in the Chinatown area for several years now and that he views the intersection of Spring Mountain and Valley View as the gateway to the corridor.

No real estate development is an easy undertaking, but this project came with some extra hurdles.

Fore confirmed that he assembled the roughly 10.5-acre site from several landowners and that it has a 12-foot drop between Valley View to Procyon.

He said that due to the change in elevation, the complex will have one more floor on the lower side of the property.

Still, he liked the site for a variety of reasons. Chinatown is a walkable area with restaurants and supermarkets, he said, adding that his project site is a short drive from both Interstate 15 and casino-packed Las Vegas Boulevard.

As he pointed out, he is no stranger to the area. Fore opened the Lotus apartment complex at the northwest corner of Spring Mountain and Procyon in 2018 and sold it later that year for $76.7 million.

He also developed Jade, an apartment complex behind the Rio hotel-casino, and Coya, a rental project at the southwest corner of Desert Inn Road and Polaris Avenue.

He sold Jade for $124.5 million in 2021, and he opened Coya last year.

From ‘truly blighted’ to ‘spectacular’

Clark County commissioners approved plans for his newest project in early 2025, and his company closed its $24.2 million purchase of the site in spring 2025.

As recently as last summer, the spread consisted of empty lots laced with weeds, a shuttered former strip club, and a few other buildings. It also had heavy amounts of graffiti and was protected by barbed wire-topped fencing that, in some areas, had coils of razor wire.

At the time, Fore said the property still drew squatters and homeless people.

According to news reports, firefighters battled a blaze in an empty building on the property in summer 2022 and a fire in a neighboring abandoned building in fall 2022.

All the old buildings on the project site have been demolished.

Clark County Commissioner Justin Jones, whose district includes the property, said Tuesday that the site used to generate “a lot of concern” from the neighbors, adding the property had homelessness, blight, and crime.

But as he described it, Fore’s group saw an opportunity to “turn something that was truly blighted” into something that will be “spectacular.”